I have Sybil Hall to thank for Kesha. Sybil, one of my closest friends, introduced us years ago, and since then we’ve celebrated releases at her house and in bars (and in New York City for the Grammys, no less), and at LA Pride one year I was told to dress up as a giant inflatable penis on stage while she performed, which I of course agreed to with zero rebuttal.

But the nervous night I got up to read a piece of my poetry at Da Poetry Lounge’s open mic, when Kesha, Sybil and Julianne surprised me by turning up, sitting front and center and snapping for me, was one of those moments when you have to remember the middle school version of the person you’ve grown into (or high school if, like me, you grew up in the tiny island nation of New Zealand), and pinch yourself.

Because for what feels like a lifetime already, I have been a Kesha fan. I adore her music, her unapologetic, beautiful, positive and uplifting way of living, and the constant reminder her presence offers all of us beautiful, damaged creatures that when we’re feeling completely overwhelmed and depleted, we should let ourselves live the entire human experience, but then call a few friends and try to let loose.

In September 2009, a few months before Animal came out and back when her name still had a dollar sign in it, Kesha and her best friends did their own glam and stayed up all night in downtown Los Angeles shooting a video for “Backstabber.” It was never officially released, a version leaked online somewhere along the way, and fans have been asking for the real thing ever since.

Kesha broke the news on Instagram the day before the release, writing that she couldn’t believe she was saying it, but after 16 years it was finally here, and on the day it dropped, she shared her story of how it came together.

“In 2009, I knew I wanted ‘Backstabber’ to be a single, so I took it upon myself to make this video to convince everyone that it deserved its moment,” she wrote. “My friends and I stayed up all night, did our own glam, and shot this video!! Everyone in it is one of my best friends. We ran around Echo Park and Silver Lake together and just loved making art.”

The shoot wasn’t far from the bar where she was working part-time, and it was her first music video, made before anyone had asked her to make one. Within a year, she’d gone from hanging out nightly at the Drunk Tank to touring the world. “It was so authentic to that moment in my life,” she wrote, “before everything changed.”

Sixteen years later, the timing could hardly be better. The look and sound of 2009 and 2010 have been back in heavy rotation for a while now, and this is the real thing, made in the moment, by the very people who defined that moment.

The song has also found its way back into her live sets lately, and anyone who caught her at Lollapalooza in 2024 might remember the knife she was swinging around during it, which she later said turned out to be a real one.

The knife carried over to the release itself, a limited-edition 7-inch vinyl cut into the shape of one and pressed in red with black splatter, “Backstabber” on the A-side and “Cannibal” on the B-side. It went up exclusively through Vertigo Vinyl and sold out almost instantly, a subtle reminder of Kesha’s power to command commercial attention, so anyone who missed it will have to make do with the video for now.

The video was directed by David Hache, Marc-Edouard Leon and Dori Oskowitz.

“This video will always have a special place in my heart,” Kesha wrote, before saving a little gratitude for the people who inspired the song in the first place. “And thanks to those backstabbers :) I appreciate the inspo.”

Watch “Backstabber” now